BIBULOUS LOCOMOTIVES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 270, 27 April 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

BIBULOUS LOCOMOTIVES.

Locomotives are exceedingly bibulous creatures. An express engine under normal conditions of running will consume from thirty to thirty-five gallons and a goods engine from forty-live to fifty gallons of water lor every mile covered, taking a general average. On such a journey as that made by the "Cornish Riviera" from London to Plymouth, 226niilcs —the longest daily non-stop run in the world—some four tons of coal are consumed against an average of no [ess than forty tons of water.

Theiicl'ore. it is necessary for engine on long non-stop runs to pick up water by a stoop from track-troughs wh;!o travelling at full speed. The troughs nave usually a length fi just over a quarter of a mile, and are laid perfectly level in the centre of the "four-foot-.' Water is taken from them by means of a movable shovel-shaped "scoop" und/T the tender, which is lowered into tho trough a* the train passes over it at full speed. The sharp edges ot this scoop cut oil. as it were, the "top-layer'' of the water winch is forced up into a large vertical pipe and deiuered through a- mushroom head or an elbow, at the top of the tender '-nto the water-tank. As soon a- tne water-gauge on tho tender indicates that tlfco tank is full, thai scoop i.s raised again, and as a very considerable effort is needed to lilt it up against tho pressure of the water, arrangements are usually made to operat" tlieh scoop by pow. r -either compressed air or steam. According to the speed at wliieii the train is travelling it is possible to lilt from 2,'HHI to 3.000 gallon - in about 'itteen seconds.

million tons of food, bought through its own voluntary branches in the ivorld's primary m. diets and shipped hy fifty or sixty cargo steamers, which week after week are employed to gather food from al! quarters of the globe pud to deliver it at Rotterdam. This unique merchant fleet sails under the Neutral Con.mi-sion's own (lag, and is rt cognised ly 11 be!li»er. nls. Coincident with the-.> amazing shipping find fmanoal operations the An.trhan representatives of the Commission in Belgium, in conjunction \\ illl the C'oniitn National r.nd its -10,000 volutit;■ rv Tse!-

g'nn helpers, protect and personally supervise the di tr hution ol all the foot supplies until they reach those for whom thev are intended.